How Trump Volatility Is Freezing Business Decisions

There’s an old joke that if you’re unhappy about the weather in San Francisco, you only have to wait a few minutes until it changes. That line is beginning to seem applicable to the Trump administration’s tariff plans. Late Tuesday afternoon—after the stock market closed on the second successive sell-off sparked by President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on Canada and Mexico—Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told Fox Business News that “we will probably be announcing” on Wednesday a compromise on those tariffs.

Cue the market recovery likely to come on Wednesday, which should at least partly reverse the total 3% drop in the S&P 500 over the past two days. Still, while the business community likely welcomed Lutnick’s comments, no one can relax. Given that in the interview Lutnick seemed to make the rate of U.S. fentanyl deaths the determining factor for whether tariffs are necessary, there’s no guarantee Trump won’t again change his mind in a few weeks.